‘Bond 24’ Officially Titled ‘Spectre’, Full Cast Announced

After much speculation, the official title and cast of ‘Bond 24’ was announced earlier this morning in London by director Sam Mendes. New castmembers—joining returning stars Daniel Craig, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris and Ralph Fiennes—include Christoph Waltz, Andrew Scott, Dave Bautista, Monica Bellucci, and Léa Seydoux. But, why read about this when you can watch it?

‘Bond 24’ now has an official title in ‘Spectre’ which classic Bond fans will recognize. SPECTRE, which is an acronym for “SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion” is sort of like Marvel’s Hydra, but in the James Bond world. They even have their own tentacled logo (see the comparison below).

And, what is 'Spectre' about?

A cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organisation. While M battles political forces to keep the secret service alive, Bond peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE.

Below, we’ve included video of the livestream from London including the cast introductions as well as the first look at Bond’s new whip, The Aston Martin DB10, which was created specifically for the film.

There was some speculation that Waltz would be playing Ernst Blofeld, a character made popular as a supervillain in a number of Bond films including ‘From Russia With Love’ and ‘Thunderball’ (he’s also the inspiration for Dr. Evil in the ‘Austin Powers’ movies). Here his character is listed as Oberhauser, which may still be a clever bit of misdirection. (Remember, prior to ‘Skyfall’ hitting theaters, they didn’t want you to know that Harris was actually playing Ms. Moneypenny.) We do know that Waltz is playing a villain and, along with Bautista and Scott, that makes a villainous trio in the film. But, considering it's Christoph Waltz, we'd have to guess he's playing the film's overarching bad guy. (Also, how is it possible that only now is Monica Bellucci a Bond Girl?)